The helmet rule on Mallorca
Wear a helmet on any road outside a town. There are no longer any exceptions for climbing, for heat or on a doctor’s note — all three were removed on 1 October 2026, and a lot of the advice still online was written before that.
This page is the one rule in detail. The other six a visiting rider meets are on the rules page.
- Out on the road
- Helmet
- Riding through town
- Not required
- Under 16
- Everywhere
- Exceptions for climbs and heat
- Repealed
On every road outside a built-up area, with no exceptions.
Adults on urban roads are not obliged to wear one. That has not changed.
On urban and interurban roads alike.
The medical exception went with them, by a separate repeal in another article.
What you have to do
A helmet is compulsory for anyone on a bicycle on an interurban road, and it has to be properly fastened. Almost all of the riding people come to this island for is on those roads.
An interurban road is anything outside a built-up area — which on Mallorca means the Ma-10 along the mountains, every climb off it, and the plain. The town limit is set by the signs at the entrance and the exit, so the boundary is on the road rather than on a map.
The wording in force, and the one it replaced:
- Art. 118.1 — the text in force until 1 October 2026
Los conductores de bicicletas y, en su caso, los ocupantes estarán obligados a utilizar cascos de protección homologados o certificados según la legislación vigente, cuando circulen en vías interurbanas, salvo en rampas ascendentes prolongadas, o por razones médicas … o en condiciones extremas de calor.
- Art. 118.2 — the text in force from 1 October 2026
El conductor y, en su caso, los ocupantes de bicicletas y ciclos en general estarán obligados a utilizar adecuadamente abrochado casco de protección homologado o certificado según la legislación vigente en las vías interurbanas, siendo obligatorio su uso por los menores de dieciséis años en todo tipo de vías.
What changed on 1 October
The reform reworded 24 articles of the regulation and added 8 more. For a cyclist the important edit is a deletion: the sentence that obliges you to wear a helmet used to end with three ways out, and the one that replaced it ends without them.
Long climbs, extreme heat, medical grounds. None of the three survives in the new wording, and nothing replaced them.
The medical exception went out through a different door
The helmet sentence never granted the medical exception itself — it pointed at Art. 119.3, which did.
Se eximirá de lo dispuesto en el artículo 118.1 a las personas provistas de un certificado de exención por razones médicas graves
Since 1 October 2026 that paragraph has read «(Suprimido)» — suppressed. The exception is gone at both ends.
3. (Suprimido)
The 7% and the 25°C
Two figures follow the old exception around: that it applied above 7% gradient, and above 25°C. Both are quoted in English-language advice as though they came out of the regulation. The regulation put no number on either condition. It said «prolonged ascending ramps» and «extreme heat conditions» and stopped there, which is very likely why two numbers got attached to them by somebody else.
The temperature is not in the text. Searching both wordings of the whole regulation — 308 articles, 427,883 characters — for 4 ways of writing 25 degrees returns nothing.
The gradient came back with a hit.
Seven per cent is in the regulation. It is in Article 63, «Tramos de gran pendiente.», which is not about helmets and never was — it is the rule for who gives way on a narrow, steep stretch of road. The number riders have been told is the helmet threshold is real, and it belongs to another article.
Art. 63.1 defines the term it uses:
Se entienden por tramos de gran pendiente los que tienen una inclinación mínima del siete por ciento.
A rider repeating the 7% is quoting a real definition that was written for something else. It has never had any bearing on whether you need a helmet.
How we got this Each claimed figure is searched for in every spelling the gazette uses for a number — digits, «por ciento», and the word written out — over the complete article text of both versions, accents and case folded. Amendment histories are excluded: they are about an article and are not part of it. The search proves itself against phrases that must be present before any absence is reported, and stops rather than reporting one it cannot stand behind.Computed from both pinned versions of the Reglamento General de Circulación, every article.Computed 30 September 2026.
Where 7% actually matters
Art. 63.1 is worth knowing on its own account, because it is about roads this island has a lot of. Where a steep stretch is also narrow enough that two vehicles cannot pass, the one climbing has priority.
The rule, in full:
En los tramos de gran pendiente, en los que se den las circunstancias de estrechez señaladas en el artículo 60, la preferencia de paso la tendrá el vehículo que circule en sentido ascendente, salvo si éste pudiera llegar antes a un apartadero establecido al efecto.
Of the 75 climb-sides measured for this site, 4 average 7% or more over their whole length, and 44 contain at least one kilometre at that gradient. The steepest average is 9.4% on Sa Talaia from Port d'Andratx.
How we got this Average gradient is height gained over length, as the climb engine computes it everywhere else on this site. «Whole side» counts sides whose average reaches 7 %; «some kilometre» counts sides whose steepest measured kilometre does. The threshold is the regulation’s, not ours — it is the only number in this paragraph that is quoted rather than chosen.Computed from the 75 published climb-sides in this site’s own measurements.Computed 7 August 2026.
Three new duties that are easy to miss
The change everyone leads with is the deletion, and the same sentence adds three duties. Each of them binds somebody who was not bound before.
What the new wording adds
| Duty | Who it binds | The words that create it |
|---|---|---|
| Properly fastened | The new wording requires the helmet to be correctly fastened, which the old one did not say of cyclists. A helmet perched unbuckled on the way up a climb is now the wrong side of the sentence. | utilizar adecuadamente abrochado casco de protección homologado |
| Under-16s, on every road | Children have to wear one in town as well as outside it. If you are bringing a family, this is the change that affects them. | siendo obligatorio su uso por los menores de dieciséis años en todo tipo de vías |
| Riding a bike for work | Anyone whose job is done on a bicycle — couriers, delivery riders — must wear one on urban roads and on roads running through a town, where an ordinary rider need not. | Los conductores que desarrollen su actividad profesional circulando en bicicletas y demás ciclos, están obligados a utilizar adecuadamente abrochado casco de protección homologado o certificado en vías urbanas y travesías |
Source Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado · checked 30 September 2026
How this was checked
Every Spanish fragment on this page is quoted from the consolidated regulation at the Spanish official gazette, at the two dated versions the gazette itself publishes: the text in force until 1 October and the text in force from it. The build refuses to publish a quotation that is not word for word in the article it names, in the version it names.
The two figures were searched for across every article of both versions, in each of the ways the gazette writes a number. The search proves itself first against phrases that have to be there before any absence is reported.
Source Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado · checked 30 September 2026Real Decreto 1428/2003, de 21 de noviembre, Reglamento General de Circulación — Reglamento General de Circulación, consolidated textrampas ascendentes prolongadas
The other six rules a visiting rider meets — lights, riding two abreast, the metre and a half, what the car behind has to do — are on the rules page.
What it costs if you are stopped without one is on the fines page.